Saturday, November 03, 2007

Unless we want to wake up on a morning in February, 2009 to find that the Republican President is, indeed, continuing the assault on the Bill of Rights, the destitute, yet another country, and plundering the world in general, it’s time to begin attacking Republicans on all fronts. Democrats haven’t provided us with nearly as much as we hoped for, though anyone looking at the thin majority that nominally put them in charge of the House and Senate and expected the sun and the moon don’t understand politics. Certainly not Democratic politics in the United States. I could go on and repeat the fact that Democrats, even those “in power” have to struggle against the Republicans, their corporate sponsors, the Republican media - virtually all of audible media and that with moving pictures - etc. But why do that when this can be devoted to attacking the Republican front-runner, Rudolph “just let me illegally hold on to power a little bit longer” Giuliani.

Giuliani is pandering to the Republican right by lying about his own cancer, his health insurance when he had it and health care provided by national health insurance in England and elsewhere.

In a radio ad airing in New Hampshire, Giuliani says: "I had prostate cancer five, six years ago. My chance of surviving prostate cancer, and thank God I was cured of it, in the United States - 82 percent. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England - only 44 percent, under socialized medicine."

He is a one-man Harry and Louise campaign. This article by Joe Conason and others point out during the period he was being treated for prostate cancer, Giuliani WAS COVERED BY GOVERMENT HEALTH PLANS!

The Giuliani ad's problems go well beyond a pair of phony numbers. Among the blogging wonks scrutinizing the relevant health data is Ezra Klein, who asked a separate but penetrating question: "Wouldn't it be interesting to find out if the gold-standard care Giuliani got during his prostate cancer came while he was on government-provided health insurance?"

As Klein surmised, Giuliani was serving as mayor and participating in a city of New York health plan when his doctor informed him that his prostate biopsy had come up positive. The coverage he enjoyed -- which resembles the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan -- permits all city employees, from trash haulers and subway clerks up to the mayor himself, to select from a variety of insurance providers, and it is not much different from the reform proposals adopted by his nemesis Hillary Clinton.

In the spring of 2000, when Giuliani learned that he had cancer and abruptly dropped out of the Senate race against Sen. Clinton, he was enrolled as a member of GHI, one of the two gigantic HMO groups that provide care for most city workers (the other is known as HIP). He underwent surgery and radiation at Mount Sinai Hospital, a prestigious institution that participates in the GHI plan, which means that his costs were largely underwritten by city taxpayers.

This, my fellow progressives, is the one big lie that every single Republican office holder practices every single day of their lives. THEY already have national health care or state health care or health care provided by their local government. Unless they hold a seat in a local government too small to provide them with government provided health care. And if they don’t now have it, chances are they aspire to a higher office that does have it. It would be good to find out how many of those running for the presidency either have had or now have health insurance paid for or administered by some branch of the government. Every politician who has enjoyed that kind of insurance and who runs against government provided health insurance has to have it put in their face at every opportunity. Giuliani isn’t just being a hypocrite, he’s also a liar, lying about the basic nature of the figures he uses to make his claims.

Instead of attacking the only alternative to waking up still under Republican rule on that morning in February, the Democrats, we should be attacking the Republicans. They, to a man, are basing their campaigns on attacking Hillary Clinton, often with transparently sexist implications. That should be a clue that if we concentrate on the Democratic front runners, we are following their campaign plans.

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